


Pyjamas

by Ladybug_21



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Moving In Together, Pyjamas, stealing each other's clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27562579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: Maggie and Jocelyn, as they navigate living together and apart.
Relationships: Jocelyn Knight/Maggie Radcliffe
Comments: 12
Kudos: 45





	Pyjamas

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this was going to be something really, really short and extremely fluffy, but I've clearly missed these two, so voilà, unexpected mini doses of angst within a much, much longer story. As always, I own no rights to _Broadchurch_.

The first time Jocelyn leaves for London—for a solid few weeks, to argue Jonah Bishop's appeal—Maggie spends the entire day under a little cloud of sullenness. All of her colleagues at _The Echo_ can tell immediately that something's dampened the mood of their usually sunny editor; she scowls as she leans over drafts of tomorrow's front page, a red pen gripped in her hand like a javelin; she heaves one too many sighs over typos and miscredited quotes, and doesn't immediately follow the sighs with as many grins of encouragement. Most of her staff quirk bemused little smiles at each other as Maggie scolds Olly with even more frustration than usual about some stupid decision or another.

Jocelyn's left Maggie with her own key to the house up on the cliffs, the key that used to live between the flowerpots outside Jocelyn's door (which has always been Maggie's, in a sense). But even though she's been more or less living there for the past few months, Maggie doesn't _want_ to stay alone in a house that will continuously remind her of Jocelyn's absence. Half of Maggie's wardrobe is now scattered throughout Jocelyn's dressers, though, so she decides to pack up anything she'll need for the rest of the month and retreat back to her own place until Jocelyn returns. She tosses things into one of Jocelyn's spare suitcases, then lies down for a moment with her face buried in Jocelyn's pillow, breathing in the scent of Jocelyn's hair—rose-scented shampoo overlaying some deeper smell that's entirely Jocelyn's. It's overwhelming, and Maggie instinctively wraps her arms around the pillow, as if holding it tightly enough will somehow bring Jocelyn back sooner.

 _God,_ _get a grip on yourself, Maggie!_ she scolds herself finally, brushing away tears as she sits up on the bed. It'll only be a few weeks, and it's not like she hasn't survived the vast majority of her life just fine without spending her evenings and nights and mornings with Jocelyn. Still, it's just another indicator of how indescribably happy Maggie has been recently, that it hurts so much to endure even a little time navigating around the space where she now fully expects Jocelyn to exist in her world.

Maggie makes her way through the fading evening light to her own house and feels distinctly out-of-place the second she steps in the door. Her own belongings are still important to her, of course, but they're not a part of her life with Jocelyn (yet). Maggie sighs as she looks around her own living room. There's no way to win here, is there—either she'll be in a space that reminds her too acutely of Jocelyn, or in a space that doesn't acknowledge Jocelyn's importance in her life at all. She's too exhausted to sort out which she prefers (or, more accurately, hates less), so she distracts herself with making dinner, and she's bemoaning the fact that half of her kitchenware has also wandered over to Jocelyn's when her mobile finally rings. Maggie smiles for the first time since that morning at the sound of Jocelyn's voice, and even though it's a laughably imperfect solution, it's still at least _something_ to be able to tell Jocelyn about her day as she rummages through drawers and cupboards, the way she would if Jocelyn were watching from across the kitchen with a glass of wine and a smile.

"You can stay at mine while I'm gone, you know," Jocelyn says hesitantly, after listening to a few seconds of Maggie grumbling over the dearth of basil in her spice drawer. "I suppose I'd half-expected you would."

Maggie leans against her counter and sighs.

"It still doesn't feel like home, though, without you there," she tells Jocelyn, omitting how loneliness has trailed her through the streets of Broadchurch and back to the house where she no longer exactly lives, regardless. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too," says Jocelyn.

And Maggie knows that she means it; but Jocelyn has left the comfort of her personal home in Broadchurch for the excitement of her professional home in the chambers and courtrooms of London. For Jocelyn, rediscovering her life before Maggie means action and adrenaline and strategy, in spaces that Jocelyn has never associated with Maggie. For Maggie, rediscovering her life before Jocelyn means sitting resentfully in the deafening silence of her old house, in a town that she cannot separate from the barrister who has become an inextricable part of her existence. Maggie wants Jocelyn to be back in court, just as she wants anything that will make Jocelyn feel happy and empowered and somehow more _complete_ ; she hasn't forgotten the miserable woman who retreated to Broadchurch four years ago and wandered its windy beaches with a lost look in her failing eyes. But even if Maggie knows that Jocelyn really does miss her, the ache of separation is mitigated for the barrister by the thrill of finding her way back to something once lost. Maggie, by contrast, has nothing to gain from being apart, other than vicarious happiness for the QC and the too-distant promise that Jocelyn will be back soon.

So Maggie tries to focus her mind on other things as she winds down for the night—a source who's now refusing to corroborate for the record what he said previously, the fact that her only reporter is growing closer and closer to finally jumping ship, what she's going to get her brother for his birthday next month (what the men in her life actually want or need has always been an enduring mystery to Maggie). As she pulls all of her clothes out of Jocelyn's suitcase and drops them unceremoniously into her own drawers, Maggie is annoyed to see that she must have forgotten to pack her favourite pyjamas, blue flannel softened through years of use. With a huff of annoyance, she pulls a substitute nightshirt from a drawer and wrinkles her nose at the musty smell it's taken on from long disuse, but she pulls it on because beggars can't be choosers. And even though Jocelyn has never spent the night at Maggie's, Maggie falls asleep feeling that the other side of her bed is too still and too cold and too empty, and she wakes up with the exact same frustrations.

It takes a few days before Maggie organises herself enough to remember to go back to Jocelyn's and retrieve her pyjamas; she keeps forgetting until she's about to drop into bed, and by that point, it's a lost cause. Yet, when she enters the sunny stillness of Jocelyn's bedroom—completely unchanged since Maggie left it, which is unnerving in and of itself—her pyjamas are not underneath the bedspread on her side of Jocelyn's bed, where she always leaves them. Maggie scowls, because this means they must have gotten lost somewhere between Jocelyn's place and hers, and they really had been her favourite pyjamas for years. She considers returning to her own house, and then changes her mind, because a good number of her clothes are still tucked in the drawers here and she's brought everything she needs from work with her, anyway. She makes herself dinner in Jocelyn's kitchen with her full arsenal of cooking implements, grins at how Jocelyn's face lights up on videochat that evening when she realises that Maggie is at the house on the cliffs, and doesn't even bother with nightclothes when she slips between the sheets of Jocelyn's bed that evening and hugs Jocelyn's pillow close. (Jocelyn isn't around to mind, and even if she were, Maggie knows that she wouldn't.)

And so the weeks limp by, and Maggie begins returning to Jocelyn's more and more frequently, not because she's forgotten something, nor because she's expecting to find her pyjamas eventually, but simply because she'd rather be there than anywhere else. She can tell that Jocelyn wants her to be there, too, can tell that Jocelyn is _overjoyed_ that Maggie wants to exist in Jocelyn's space, even if while waiting for Jocelyn to come back. It's just one more little way for Jocelyn to feel reassured that Maggie intends to stay for the long haul, that Jocelyn will never return home to the loneliness in which she lived before the Joe Miller trial. And finally the case is over, and Jocelyn is leaving London, and when Maggie sees Jocelyn on the platform at the train station, she throws herself into Jocelyn's arms, laughing with relief.

"Would you consider living here permanently?" Jocelyn murmurs that night. "Eventually, I mean."

Maggie is almost asleep, but she blinks awake at this. Jocelyn is holding her breath as she waits for Maggie's answer, so Maggie pulls her a little closer and snuggles into her, to ease the tension away.

"I'd assumed that that was how things were trending," she yawns. "Bit presumptuous of me, I suppose. Glad to hear that we're on the same page, though. We're keeping my sofa, your living room furniture is rubbish for midday naps."

And that's the end of the conversation, although, as she falls back asleep, Maggie can practically feel the happiness radiating from Jocelyn. In the morning, as Maggie is folding a load of freshly cleaned laundry, she's surprised to rediscover her favourite pyjamas tumbled in with all of Jocelyn's clothes; and if she's at the point where she's losing and unexpectedly recovering articles of clothing in Jocelyn's laundry baskets, then that's probably a sure sign that Maggie is overdue to move in, anyway.

By the next time Jocelyn leaves for London, Maggie's sofa is installed in the living room, and her books are crammed in alongside Jocelyn's on the bookshelves, and her old house is on the market. It's still lonely wandering through the rooms of the house and not finding Jocelyn in any of them, but Maggie's chosen irreversibly to be here, holding down the fort for her barrister, and she's very happy with the decision. After all, far better to be constantly surrounded by things that remind her of Jocelyn (however longingly), than to try to escape into a world void of Jocelyn's presence. This doesn't explain why her favourite pyjamas have gone missing again, though, and Maggie has her suspicions even before they suddenly reappear in the laundry when Jocelyn is back in Broadchurch. She doesn't say anything for a few more days, mostly because she's curious to see if Jocelyn will first; but, then again, Maggie knows that she can't _always_ count on Jocelyn to initiate conversations.

"You know, I've noticed a somewhat curious trend," she announces one evening as she's getting ready for bed. Jocelyn glances up and makes a sheepish little face when she sees that Maggie is examining her favourite flannel pyjamas critically. "Any wild theories as to why these seem to go missing every time you're away?"

Maggie's grinning impishly, so Jocelyn knows that she doesn't really mind, but Jocelyn still looks slightly as though she wants to pull the comforter up over her head and hide there, embarrassed. It's really quite adorable.

"I miss the way you smell," she confesses finally. "I know that sounds ridiculous, but hotel rooms are just so... so _sterile_ , all bleach and cleaning agents, and no warmth or comfort. It's the closest I can get to having you in London with me, being able to curl up with your pyjamas in the evenings."

That doesn't sound ridiculous at all to Maggie, especially given all of the nights she's spent curled up with Jocelyn's pillow while she's away. She pulls on her pyjamas with a smile and slips under the covers next to Jocelyn, who's still blushing slightly.

"I should have asked, first," she acknowledges. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, don't be," Maggie laughs, turning out the light. "I'll confess, I was extremely confused during that first stint you did back in London—thought they'd somehow gotten lost. But I'm henceforth giving you blanket permission to steal my pyjamas anytime."

"Mmm, thank you," sighs Jocelyn, wrapping an arm around Maggie. "I promise I'll always bring them back to you."

Maggie kisses the top of Jocelyn's head, then breathes in deeply, revelling in having Jocelyn in her arms—Jocelyn, who is so much more solid and warm and Jocelyn-smelling than her pillow ever could be. She suspects that Jocelyn likewise is appreciating just how present Maggie is in this moment.

"They're just things, petal," Maggie whispers. "What matters most is that _you_ always come back home to me."

And, nestled here in the house which is now her home too, Maggie knows that Jocelyn always will.


End file.
